Mother forced to choose which child to save after car accident

A pregnant mother has spoken of the heartbreaking moment she was forced to choose between saving her son or daughter after their car plunged into a dyke.

Close family: Jack with Isabella and mother Rachel (Pictures: Caters)

Rachel Edwards had seconds to make the agonising decision as the car sank after an accident during a family holiday last month.

She escaped through an open window and dived back into 3m (10ft) of water to grab hold of the car seat where two-year-old daughter Isabella was sitting.

Fearing she would lose grip of Isabella if she tried to reach 16-year-old son Jack, Ms Edwards returned to the surface.

Paramedics then stopped her returning to the dyke near Boston, Linconshire, for her own safety.

Jack was rescued by the first police officer on the scene but died hours later in hospital.

‘The last thing I remember about my son is, as the car was going down, he put his hand on my arm like he was protecting me,’ said 39-year-old Ms Edwards, from Essex.

‘I tried to go back for Jack but I knew if I let go of Isabella then I wouldn’t be able to get her back,’ she added. ‘I was just screaming and screaming.

‘The ambulance crew would not let me get back in to save him. Since then I have spent every waking moment thinking about how I could have saved both my children.’

Jack was sitting in the front passenger seat of the silver Citroen Xsara when it hit a pothole before veering into the dyke. Ms Edwards, who is due to give birth to a boy on November 21, collected Jack’s GCSE results just five days after his death.

‘He got Cs and Ds. That was what he needed to get into college. He might have not got As or anything but he made a lot of people happy and that to me is more important than exams,’ she said.

More than 300 people attended his funeral last Friday in Dunmow, Essex. Jack’s father Carl Brennan, from Alvaston, Derbyshire, who is separated from Ms Edwards, said: ‘It is a hard thing to put into words how I feel. You don’t think you would ever have to bury your child.’

Two of Jack’s friends, Tom and Dave, were also in the car but pulled themselves to safety.